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I saw Blade Runner 2049 today. It was really good. It's as visually spectacular as you would expect. Just phenomenal. If this isn't the movie that finally gets Roger Deakins a cinematography Oscar, then it's a lost cause because holy **** this was phenomenal.

Overall I probably liked it more than the original Blade Runner. "K" is a much more interesting character than Deckard. The story overall kept me more engaged and it had a nice twist. It's an almost 3-hour movie but I never felt the length.

They're trying so hard to cram as many tropes and references as they can into a single half-hour episode that they leave too much unexplored and too many threads hanging. Still, what they manage to do is interesting, though it's not my kind of humor. Morty's sexual frustration has become a sort of running gag, so that makes me wonder what's in store. So far I'm not interested in watching more than one episode of this in a row, but that's okay.

BR2049 was very good. I very rarely go to the theater but I decided to check it out because it seemed like a significant enough release. Only saw the original Blade Runner once maybe one or two years ago but I knew enough to appreciate the references and callbacks.

Unfortunately I planned things out poorly and I had to watch it in 3D.

Inception was BWOMMMMM/10. Kind of whatever. Glad I watched it for the cultural relevance but got bored for the middle third of the movie and think if you're going to have a movie set in literal dreams you could make it a little more visually interesting than Standard Action Set with, like, 3 scenes tops that had cool dreamlike moments or visuals. Had a few really good scenes but overall was really nothing special

So then I watched Paprika which was so much better in virtually every capacity. Concept, visuals, music, pacing, artistic direction in general, presentation; so good. 9.5/10 (.5 subtracted because the climax is the weakest part of the movie imo, but the rest of the movie is so wonderful it doesn't need the epic climax to sell it. This is a movie where I would absolutely say the journey matters more than the destination.)

Rewatched the FMA movie (Conqueror of Shamballa, finale to the 2003 series) because people on the fma discord server kept bitching about how the movie is trash and I thought "maybe I just liked it because I was on my FMA high, imma re-watch and be more critical this time"

Nah, still is awesome, 8/10 general rating and 10/10 as an ending to the 2003 series. The haters have garbage taste. I'll spare you the essay but the condensed version is: ending to the series would not be anywhere near as impactful without this movie's specific setting, which it handles INCREDIBLY well. I also love the dreams vs. reality theme it has going, something I never really picked up on before. It's generally just really good.

Only downside is the pacing is a bit rushed because it covers what could have been a season of anime in 1.75 hours; but given that limitation, I think everything it covers makes sense and is valuable to the overall story.

[[The CGI for the armor is pretty bad, but is balanced out by that unnecessary but incredibly cool and very well animated scene of Ed snapping his fake arm open at the elbow to put it into Overdrive for a neat gratuitous fight scene. So overall no net deductions in the animation category.]]

Oh, and the two Romani songs are incredible and two of the best songs in the 03 series soundtrack in its entirety. Apparently the composer also plays guitar in them, too. Sick.

I saw a post on tumblr that made me remember that El Tigre is a show that exists and I haven't seen it in years so I decided it was time for a re-binge.

God. What a good show. Watched the first 11 episodes (or 22 half-episodes) so far; the style is great, the humor is great, the characters are great, everything is just so enjoyable. Manny and Frida are such endearing little s***lords. The Rivera family in all its extended and complicated glory is excellent. 10/10 show would recommend to friends

Re-watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them yesterday, and saw The Book of Life for the first time.

Fantastic Beasts holds up on rewatch. It's just so COOL to see adult witches and wizards adeptly using magic in interesting ways, and to see magic and magical creatures as a part of the world rather than the setting feeling confined to Magic School like in Harry Potter. I really like all of the main characters and I think the concept of an Obscurus is a good one. I feel like the Grindelwald reveal is the weakest part of the movie because it's just blatant sequel-bait, whereas everything else is really solid, but I guess I can see the appeal of linking it to the Harry Potter story for people who love Harry Potter (as someone who enjoyed but was never really that into HP, I don't care one way or another if the stories connect). Anyway this movie is basically How To Train Your Fantastic Beasts and I love it for that. 8/10?

The Book of Life was gorgeous, as expected. I have a soft spot for stories about bard protagonists (like Kubo and the Two Strings), and this one was really cute and fun. The Land of the Remembered was, just... so vivid and breathtaking. This movie is a visual masterpiece, and it's cute and fun and the songs are nice (the Creep cover was unexpected and gr9, but my favorite song was the original one at the end with the bull). It was very hetero but sweet. Plus, it's just nice to see a really good movie that has such a solid vision, entirely dedicated to Mexican culture. My hometown is majority Mexican and most of the friends I grew up with are Mexican-American so it's just refreshing to see that reflected on the big screen. 9/10, point deducted because Maria basically had no flaws as a character which made her really not interesting; Joaquin and Manolo were such great characters though holy ****. Their friendship-rivalry was developed really well. Also, I can't believe Joaquin's attack cry is just his name?? that was hilarious.

Anyway so I'm back bingeing El Tigre and of course it's all amazing, but episode 18 is just outta nowhere on a whole nother level. This show starts good and then just gets better somehow. The first half of 18 (Fistful of Nickels) was just a solid Rivera family episode, 10/10, and then the ending to the second half of 18 (Animales) after an episode of shenanigans was so unexpectedly heartwarming ;_;

Best Nick animated show. Sorry, Avatar: The Last Airbender; you had a better story, but El Tigre is just... so good. A lot of the humor is blowing-air-out-of-nose-slightly-harder-than-normal silly but then some stuff has me completely losing it. I'm pretty sure "what truck?" from the Golden Eagle twins episode is the funniest line in cartoon history.

Also, I just love love LOVE all of the character dynamics so much?? It hits the perfect balance of "mostly shenanigans and cartoon physics and ridiculousness, with sprinkles of genuine character moments here and there", and I am pretty sure Manny and Frida have the best superpowered-protag-with-superpowerless-BFF dynamic of all time. Everything about it is perfect, especially since there's no NO 1 CAN KNO MY SECRET IDENTITY!!1 subplot so mostly they're just tweenage s***lords being bad influences on each other, and one of them just has magic extendy claws sometimes. Those two are hardcore ride-or-die got-ur-back no-questions-asked, except for when they're being awful fickle tweenage s***lords; it's fantastic. And of course, the Rivera family is just absolutely insane but in the best way.

What a good show. I'm surprised it doesn't have a more dedicated cult following considering how really damn good it was. Oh well, be the change you want to see in the world, I guess. Time to go, idk, make stuff or something. anyway 10/10 literally flawless

last thing i watched was gameplay footage of the el tigre video game because it's midnight and i have lost control of my life. may or may not have made a somewhat guilty 6 dollar seconhand purchase that may or may not be arriving next week ..

I watched the latest Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which continues to be one of the most interesting, funniest and best shows on television. It was hard to watch at times as Rebecca continued to push the people that care about her away to continue her vendetta against Josh. Really heartbreaking how the character is written because obviously her mental illness isn't an excuse for her terrible behavior and actions but you still want her to overcome her downward spiral that just seems to get worse and worse. They did a great job with the direction and characters in the episode making this feel more like a horror/revenge movie while still obviously maintaining the comedic elements. And the final musical number was phenomenal, though I wish they didn't spoil the guest star at the beginning of the episode because the reveal would've been even more incredible.

If you don't watch this show, you should. First two seasons are on Netflix. Very subversive of romantic comedies and musical. It's consistently funny and continually surprising.

Man I watched Chappie the other night and **** Chappie. Chappie is garbage. I hate Chappie so much.

Like, I get that Dev Patel's character wanted to make artificial intelligence that could *feel* or whatever but why would you make artificial intelligence that doesn't know anything at first? Why wouldn't you at least have it understand stuff like English?

So what you get is this weird robot that's basically a 5-year old child that doesn't understand a lot of basic stuff about the world but hey he can figure out how to upload human consciousness and transfer it between bodies. There's little logic to the movie and everybody is dumb. I hate Chappie so much. I hope Chappie dies.

I watched Garden of Sinners part 1 and part 2, holy **** that was weird. It opens with somebody jumping off a building and kind of spirals from there. While I thought the ending with the ghosts was lame, it was good over all. I like the ending of Sinners 2 better but it felt a little rough at points. Shiki's hands awkwardly shrink during a fight scene and it's really weird.

I also binged Unlimited Blade Works which was really good, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed coming from fate zero. It really eased up on the death toll, to say the least.

So like I'm not the hugest Pixar fan. I LOVE some of their movies (Brave), and think most of them are either good or fine with some exceptions. So I didn't actually have enormous hopes for Coco other than "it will probably not be bad."

I was so fucjin wrong my dudes. It was just... so pure and wholesome and good. I called about half of the plot points halfway through the movie but it didn't matter because the point of the movie was how it presented its themes rather than the shock factor/surprises. There was no plot twist shock factor really; most of the reveals were heartwarming if anything. The story is told really well and I LOVE the music SO MUCH.

Also it made me really emotional bc I miss mariachi and being surrounded by it in middle/high school in the community where I grew up ;__;

Anyway new favorite Pixar movie I think. By which I mean it's not "good because it's a Pixar movie", but it's a movie made by Pixar that's really goddamn good. I wanna see it again. It's just so wonderful and I love everything about it

i watched the latest episode of riverdale and oooooh boy this episode had:
1. tony todd as a creepy farmer
2. a texas chain saw massacre-style intro
3. frequent use of classics iv's "spooky" as a music cue
4. hot sheriff dad
5. hot shariff's son explaining his nerd ass board game he came up with to his friend
6. the reveal of a crime lady who has like an eastern european accent but her appearance screamed "nazi" to me
7. a creepy janitor
8. veronica showing up to a stakeout in a skirt and heels

and that's not everything because with all this there's a MURDER MYSTERY you guys riverdale is the best show on tv it's not close

like i dunno even what to say about riverdale it's such a perfect show holy ****

i had my doubts. i mean it's a teen drama about the archie gang and like i thought it was the dumbest thing and all it was was "what if archie f***ed???" and it kind of is that and there's a really gross subplot about said f***ing early in the series but luckily it gets out of the way quickly because everyone hated it.

but like, there's murder mysteries, josie and the pussycats rule, gangs, street races, a drug called JINGLE JANGLE, maple syrup dynasties everyone is super hot (even (especially???) the parents), all the parents are played veterans of teen dramas because this show loves paying homage to its influences too it's so delightfully self-aware and not in an annoying way

the show quickly went from "stupid show that i'm gonna watch drunk and make fun of" to "well it's still pretty stupid but it knows it's stupid and it's perfect for it and MY FAVORITE SHOW ON TV"

it's really hitting its stride this season jump on the bandwagon before it's too late

HTTYD2 was on cable at my parents' place on Christmas so of course I watched it.

9/10; visuals are stunning and breathtaking and it feels so vibrant and alive and god it's gorgeous. I'm not the biggest fan of HOW they scaled it up - I really loved how the first movie was so focused on Hiccup and Toothless and everything else followed; this one felt jarring because it very suddenly went BIG EPIC WAR AND WORLDBUILDING which was really *cool* but the transition was a little... unnatural? Unexpected? I don't know. Other than that, and how Toothless's upgrade just came out of nowhere (small nitpicks tbh) it remains a fantastic movie full of heart and soul.

The Gift of the Night Fury short followed it. 10/10 because I watched it on Christmas and it's just so pure and adorable and wholesome and addresses being without loved ones on the holidays and it's just very sweet.

I also watched the first couple episodes of the Tales of Symphonia OVA during ad breaks because thanks cable. It's hard to rate it as an anime divorced from the context of its source game because I know its source game so well; I would put it somewhere around 6-7 as an anime and 7-8 as an adaptation. (This is just the early episodes; the LAST arc is where it gets **** incredible.) I think it does a good job of setting up the important story threads in the game and streamlining its epic enormous convoluted JRPG plot a bit for an anime audience. Some of the game tropes don't translate super well to an anime medium, but if you accept the source material is a video game it's easy to forgive. I don't like how they made Lloyd leaving the village some protag sacrifice rather than because he **** up, but again I get why they threw out the Marble plot to streamline things (...it's a good introduction to Regal and Kratos's stories though so I don't think keeping it would have been a bad idea tbh).

Anyway still really good. And only gets better tbh. United World arc is godtier of video game anime adaptations